{"id":23338,"date":"2023-02-23T14:14:07","date_gmt":"2023-02-23T19:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=23338"},"modified":"2023-02-24T09:43:12","modified_gmt":"2023-02-24T14:43:12","slug":"olli-celebrates-30-years-of-pure-learning-for-seniors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/olli-celebrates-30-years-of-pure-learning-for-seniors\/","title":{"rendered":"OLLI celebrates 30 years of \u2018pure learning\u2019 for seniors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mid-morning is a busy time in the lobby of the Herring Center. Dozens of older adults, members of Fuman\u2019s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI)<\/a>, stream through, exiting one class session or entering another, chatting and smiling. OLLI director Nancy Kennedy \u201990 greets most of them by name.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are people who are interested in things and want to keep learning, and they enjoy being with people who have that same passion,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cThey\u2019re here to learn things they\u2019ve always wanted to learn but never had the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

OLLI students at work in a drawing class<\/p><\/div>\n

With approximately 120 courses<\/a> during each of three terms, OLLI is now celebrating its 30th year of helping senior Greenvillians stay mentally and physically active. In Spring 2023, members \u2013 most of whom are 55 and older \u2013 could explore Sondheim, Shakespeare, Jung, acrylic painting, ukulele, guitar, weightlifting, wealth management, Tai Chi, hiking, Latin, poker, the history of the \u201960s, the Transcontinental Railroad, beekeeping, Indian cooking, Islam and \u201cStar Trek.\u201d<\/p>\n

Classrooms take up two floors in the Herring Center, along with a demonstration kitchen with an ever-steaming coffee machine. Special interest groups<\/a> meet in the lobby, and OLLI also hosts Friday bonus events and Tuesday lunch-and-learns.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not here to get a degree or pass a test or get a job,\u201d said Kennedy. \u201cIt\u2019s pure learning. You\u2019re learning to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

OLLI has expanded steadily since Sarah Fletcher established Furman University Learning in Retirement (FULIR, pronounced \u201cfuller\u201d) in 1993 with 62 members and seven classes taught in one classroom in Furman Hall.<\/p>\n

FULIR was renamed after receiving a grant from the Bernard Osher Foundation, which supports 125 Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes<\/a> on college campuses across the country. When the Herring Center was completed in 2012, OLLI had its new headquarters.<\/p>\n

By 2020, OLLI membership reached 2,600. The numbers went down during the pandemic but have since rebounded, with about 2,100 people expected to take courses this year. Many courses remain available online.<\/p>\n

About 800 volunteers along with five full-time staffers and one part-time employee help run the operation, said Kennedy, who came to OLLI part time in 2011 and took over as director in 2014. Members form an executive council and several committees that guide OLLI and keep the coffee \u2013 and other necessities \u2013 flowing. Grant funds, along with membership fees and class tuitions, keep OLLI self-sustaining.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Nancy Kennedy ’90, director of OLLI<\/p><\/div>\n

Membership is $65 a year<\/a>, and individual courses are $55, with course packages available. Courses are usually 90 minutes long and meet once a week during the day.<\/p>\n

The curriculum is ever-changing. Popular courses are likely to repeat, and new courses are decided by a curriculum committee that recruits instructors \u2013 all volunteers \u2013 and considers proposals. Several current and retired Furman faculty members lead classes, but many instructors are OLLI members themselves, or \u201cjust people from the community who just love to teach,\u201d said Kennedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re all teaching here because they love their topic and they want to share it with our members,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Many members are residents of the Woodlands at Furman<\/a>. Over 30 years, OLLI has played a significant role in making the Greenville area a popular retirement destination, said Kennedy, whose mother is also a member.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are people who tell me they moved to Greenville because of OLLI,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you\u2019re looking for a place to retire, you know it\u2019s going to be a little bit harder to make new friends. You need to find a way to build your new community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a playground for seniors,\u201d said Morgan Kutzner, 69, a semi-retired chiropractor who has been an OLLI regular for about five years, glancing up from his woodworking project. \u201cYou can learn so much and do so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dick Eaton, an 88-year-old Woodlands resident and, at various times since 2002, an OLLI member, student, instructor, volunteer and council member, put it more simply.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no tests,\u201d he said, \u201cand there\u2019s no homework.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Offering classes and activities since 1993, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute proves that curiosity never retires.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":23340,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,85,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-olli-at-furman","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}